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HALIACMON

HALIACMON, FL. (Ἁλιάκμων, Hesiod, Hes. Th. 341; Hdt. 7.127; Scyl. p. 26; Strab. vii. p.330; Ptol. 3.13. § § 15, 18; Caesar B.C. 3.36; Liv. 42.53; Plin. Nat. 4.10; Claud. B. Get. 179: Vistrítza; Turkish, Inje-Kara), a river of Macedonia, [p. 1.1026]rising in the chain of mountains to which Ptolemy (l.c.) gave the name of Canalovii.
According to Caesar (l.c.), it formed the line of demarcation between Macedonia and Thessaly.

In the upper part of its course it takes a SE. direction through Elymiotis, which it watered; and then, continuing to the NE., formed the boundary between Pieria, Eordaea, and Emathia, till it discharged itself into the Thermaic gulf.
In the time of Herodotus the Haliacmon was joined by the Lydias, or discharge of the lake of Pella; but a change has now taken place in the course of the latter, which joins not the Haliacmon, but the Axius. The Haliacmon itself appears to have moved its lower course to the E. of late, so that, in time, perhaps all the three rivers may unite before they join the sea.

The Vistrítza, although betraying a Slavonic modification in its termination, may possibly be a corruption of ASTRAEUS (Aelian, Ael. NA 15.1), which was perhaps the ordinary appellation of the river below the gorges of Beraea, as Haliacmon was that above them; in the same manner as Injékara and Vistrítza are used in the present day.

Its banks are now confined by artificial dykes to restrain its destructive inundations, and the river itself is noted at Vérria for guliani of immense size: the same fish grows to enormous dimensions in the lake at Kastoría [CELETRUM], which is one of the sources of the Vistrítza. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. i. pp. 303, 316, vol. iii. pp. 292, 437.)